The Jewel Lords are a subset of the Rock Lords, themselves a subset of the oft-maligned Gobots, or Machine Robo toys in Japan. Despite an impeccable Popy pedigree, these toys are little loved, at least in the States. It’s true that the line had its disappointments, but there were terrific entries as well, such as the Jewel Lords.

As Machine Robo wound down in the late eighties, Bandai lost its damned mind and introduced the Rock Lords. The Rock Lords are baffling. What appeals to me about transforming mecha is that something inherently cool, a robot, becomes something else which is cool, say a gun or a spaceship, using the same mechanical vocabulary. The Rock Lords, however, aren’t robots at all - they are living rock-monsters. But hold on! These living rock-monsters, as if by magic, can transform into…ROCKS. That’s it, rocks. Becoming a rock solves nothing. It’s not productive, fun, scary, or cool.

That being said, I love the Rock Lords. They are surprisingly good toys. Many have decent diecast content, and the transformations are inventive and sophisticated. The figure modes are mostly attractive, really embracing the alien/monster aesthetic, not unlike the MR “devil” foes before them. Rock Lords are more substantial than the typical, first-wave (or 600 series) Gobots, really durable and 4” tall.

The Jewel Lords were a late entry into the Rock Lord pantheon, and switched things up with translucent plastics. Their alt-modes are crystalline gemstones. Other than late-period scarcity, one can’t help but speculate that the sales of these were impacted by the vaguely feminine quality of the toys. There is a distinct My Little Pony/She-Ra vibe to these.

No matter. The clear plastic over metal aesthetic is beautiful, evoking Henshin Cyborg and Microman. Each of the Jewel Lords is solid, well detailed (painted screws!), and fun to hold and play with.

Sunstone, or Amberman in Japan, is a boxy, pugnacious figure cast in orange translucent plastic, with chrome diecast limbs and joints.

His head is nicely detailed with paint applications.

The claws on his hands and feet are painted with metallic silver, a detail similar to the Devil Satan Six monsters.

His only accessory, a dull gold axe, is missing from this specimen. While Sunstone is technically well-articulated, his joints mainly exist in service of the transformation. His arms just sort of flop around and cannot hold a pose. His knees bend, but once you bend them he cannot stand. His hips spread somewhat, though balancing him once you’ve done so is difficult. Oh yeah, he has a waist joint.

The transformation to a lump-of-amber alt-mode is complex, requiring you to slide pieces apart, twist and collapse them.

Sunstone has the best and most Rock Lord-like transformation of the Jewel Lords.

The lump-of-amber, while an attractive object, suffers from the inherent Rock Lord flaw in that it doesn’t do anything.

It feels more like a puzzle than a proper transformer. Sunstone is a solid toy and looks great along side the other Jewel Lords, Rock Lords, or translucent toys. I would expect to pay anywhere from ten to twenty-five bucks for Sunstone loose.

Actually, about 50% of the Machine Robo/Rocklord counterparts from Japan are drastically different. Notable differences include: Tombstone's (Japan name: Geigerrock) Machine Robo counterpart has bright red neck and arms, Solitaire's Machine Robo counterpart is almost 100% clear with very little translucent blue parts when compared to the US Jewel lord release, Magmar's Machine Robo counterpart has a lighter green face and purple highlights instead of orange, Sticks N Stones Machine Robo version is solid Black with no "swirl effect" (although one almost exact to the swirled Rocklord version was also released in Japan at some point), Marbles Machine Robo version has dark green limbs and a white "raccoon mask" around his eyes.......theres more as well I just cant think of them all.

Here's my problem with this guy. If you put this guy in his stone mode,and handed it to me,and said "What is this?" I would NEVER,NEVER guess. It just doesn't look like anything really,I'd probably guess it was part of some other toy. As a robot I guess he's pretty OK. When Go Bots first came out I was all about them for awhile,but they just got kind of lame. Psy-kill (?) was pretty cool,and Scooter,and the limozine dude.

Who's the yellow guy in the bottom picture? He kind of reminds me of a cross between a Ghostbuster,Zartan,and piss.

That whip is the Rock Lords Stone Wing, which deserves its own review. It has a fair chunk of gokin; you could bludgeon someone to death with this thing. Nekrodave is right on the money. The micronauts are awesome; check out innerspaceonline.com for more goodness.

Hey, I wouldn't hold it against ya. There were SO many amazing toy lines in the 80's, whether inspired by pre-existing Japanese lines or not. Not remembering one particular line, iconic or not, is perfectly understandible.

Hey, I was barely aware of the Outer Space Men, possibly one of the greatest and certainly most influential toy lines in history, before Matt Doughty enlightened me further.

I had no idea these things existed. I had the colorforms. The designs are in one of those vague corners in my mind of toys I loved. It was the same with my beloved Power Lords, whom I barely remembered and later snatched up to fill the hole in my brain. Thanks for that link!

Yeah, first I heard of them was from Keith at one of the Summit's a few years back. He couldn't remember the name but talked about the figures of aliens from different planets. Such a great line and there were also Bullmarks made. The figures should be coming back at some point in some form in the future.

Micronauts were also one of the best toy lines ever. For pure play value, I don't think they can be beat. Anyone who never got to play with Micronauts as a kid really missed out. I wish I could collect those too. :(

"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High

Yeah, I had to throw in the towel on Microman/Micronauts a few years ago. I had to choose between them and gokin. I still wish somebody could succeed with a 'naut revival, but I don't think the market's there.

Micronauts were undoubtedly hot! Though I never had any, my favorite feature about them was the art on the packaging. Far and away my favorite toy art EVAR.

As for the Outer Space Men, I'm really hoping they re-engineer the figures (without changing the sculpt/style) with modern bendy toy tech and release them in similar packaging to the originals. That would absolutely kill! You guys should check out the official OSM page.

I bought a copy of their graphic novel at the NYCC, where Nekrodave and I met Gary Schaeffer. We got to check out his amazing vintage OSM toys--the Colorforms bendy figures, Bullmark vinyls, prototypes for Matchbox vehicles...EVERYTHING! Gary mentioned the possibility of reissues and I was psyched to hear it! And after reading the comic, I know how serious these guys are...it's quality!

Don't even get me started on box art. All the packaging for almost every line was just fantastic back then,Transformers,He-Man,G.I. Joe,MASK,on and on. Both from a graphic design layout standpoint and just because the paintings were so damn awesome.

And it turns out I do have a Micronaut figure,he comes with a Godzilla 1954 rubber suit he can wear. I just forgot what line he was from,since my interest in him is purely as a kaiju fan.

I posted quick blog earlier, but I'll also mention it here that Ken Kelly, who did the famous artwork for the Micronauts alien figures (as well as some KISS albums and lots of other stuff) was inducted into the Monster Kid Hall of Fame. The work he did for those packages was simply amazing and a huge part of most people's fond memories of the toys. I also got into my first fight in kindergarten over one when a classmate of mine tried to take my card and it tore in two. The figure was already off and I brought just the card to class b/c it was so awesome. I think it was either Membros or Repto, I can't remember.

"This must be settled the way nature intended....with a vicious, bloody fight!"
Onyx Blackman
Principal, Flatpoint High

These toys are great there so unique and strange. "Lets play with rocks..." Your collection looks great. I went looking for these on e-bay found Flamestone made an offer the dude wanted to much for his pet rock. Nice review.

A flamestone review's coming up! I posted a link a few weeks back on tbdx where some joker was selling a plain old rock lord (magmar, the red guy in the group pic) for 150 dollar buy it now. If you're patient, you can find these guys pretty cheap.

Ya, Flamestone is on E-bay $100 I tried to barter a lower price the guy wouldn't budge, at that point just keep the toy I say. Picked up some Go-Bots I used to have as a kid, that got me started. But I'd love to find these Jewel Lords. Going to the Flea Market this weekend. Those places have toys all over and most people don't know anything about them having worth to collectors. Look forward to that review.

Hi, great reviews, I always thought these were pretty cool and have thought of picking them up.

Yellow Membros is in fact one of the 2002 Palisades remakes. Unfortunately, the first release was marred by a fiasco with a crooked factory, and the toys in this run were made with zero quality control by an unauthorized third party, while the contracted factory took the money and ran. The second and collector's exclusive series turned out easily better overall. Yellow Membros is one of the worst for QC in the line and I'm honestly impressed you have one with both arms intact. I worked on the line (series fan consultant, new accessory and color design, some supplemental CG art) and I have a whole bunch that were broken in-package and only 2 or 3 with both intact arms, and others with even mis-matched parts the factory tried to hide with yellow paint. Truly awful stuff that was painful to everybody concerned.

Handle that one with kid gloves and don't repose its elbows if you can help it...

That said, I had a lot of fun messing around with the parts from broken ones I have (these ones were from loose ones that Palisades either pulled or had returned): http://rockettubes.livejournal.com/89892.html

Sadly, folks in the Micronauts community just found out today the original designer of the Micronaut alien toys and vehicles, Stephen Lee (who also worked on Exo Squad, Matchbox's Parasites, some stuff for early TMNT, and many other toylines), passed away a couple of months ago. Hopefully we can get a tribute site together later (one of our members was a friend who owns a number of interesting concept art and prototype photos from Mr. Lee). The original concept for Membros was way cooler than the final product, and I like to think some of the figures we did (that were not messed up by said factory) helped explore at least part of its potential a little further along the lines that Mr. Lee originally envisioned.

Thanks for your input, Microbry. I am a longtime fan of your blog and work with the Palisades Micronauts. I think you do an admirable job of contextualizing these toys and, gasp, playing with them. I spent a few years as a member of the Micropolis Embassy.

My Palisades Micronauts are either disassembled owing to the o-ring debacle, or are in storage. I understand why things went bad, but it's unfortunate that these toys, which were designed to be played with, have to be left alone.

It was my love of microman/nauts that led me to the Jewel Lords. I think you'll really like them.